Xbox watching your every move

Brands will soon be invading your lounge room and monitoring everything you do, from bathroom breaks to funny facial expressions in order to communicate better with you. This is the future of advertising and it’s a lot closer than could be imagined.
(Xbox One)

Man this isn't good. Microsoft should abandon Kinect after the massive and shameful leak which revealed that the firm had given access to private citizens conversations, both video and chat, to the NSA, CIA and FBI.

This is serious. Next thing you know the government is in our living rooms courtesy Kinect.

Sony fanboys and their conspiracies. I always wonder how far these fanboys have to go before people stop taking them seriously.

Now let's looks at this logically. Say MS sells 80 millions consoles as they did with 360, do you really think that MS is going to sit there and watch 80 million people individually sit there staring at a TV with a controller in their hand.

"I always wonder how far these fanboys have to go before people stop taking them seriously."

No one takes you seriously. At what point do you think that happened?

"Now let's looks at this logically. Say MS sells 80 million console as they did with 360, do you really think that MS is going to sit there and watch 80 million people individually sit there staring at a TV with a controller in their hand."

You're the one not using logic. MS reportedly handed over email and chat data for tens of millions of users (80 million qualifies as "tens of millions" by the way) to the NSA, and who says anyone has to sit and watch the Kinect feed? It's just data that can be run through a software filter.

"Screw the alphabet agencies, I'm not selling drugs or children so I don't care." Outside of obvious crimes we really don't know what action the government would see as "suspicious activities".What you do in your daily life in which you consider to be normal, the government may see it as suspicious. Food for thought.

@georgenoob I really hope your an adolescent because if you are an adult with that much ignorance nestled in your brain you should be ashamed of yourself. Have you ever heard of the record feature? Its this magical little app found on most video recording machines and/or cameras. Its convenient in which someone does not necessarily have to watch an activity or person for information to be recorded. It would be right there in the respective storage medium. Just throwing that out there.

Wow, what a MS shill you are. You're saying It's logical and ok because not all 80 million will be spied on. That's some logic./s

You're just another blind fanboy(or shill) unable to look beyond this childish console fanboy warz to see the truth. You're a known fanboy who don't even know the meaning of logic with your M$ glasses on 24/7. There's people like you signing that petition to take away your rights because you're either too young, a fanboy or a shill to see past brand loyalty.

The gathering of private information isn't cool in any form. Just because it's done already doesn't make a new form of it ok. This is an argument made by sheep, and that's the only way to put it. You can say no one cares about Google or Facebook doing it, but you'd be completely wrong.

No one has claimed that Kinect was used in nefarious ways that should result in lawsuits, but it's an established fact that Microsoft has a history of handing over private information so to say it is impossible with Kinect is ludicrous.

Its what they've been planning to do since first announcing it. When it was still called Natal.

@Mr_Nuts: Its all for ad revenue.

They want to make money off of customers, who are already paying them to use their system.

Still, since they had to backdown from always online - and really, the 24 hour check in was meant to promote always online - they wont be able to assure that every XB1 is a connected marketing machine.

They shouldn't go as far as abandoning kinect over the Snowden leaks.. that's a little over the top but imho they should at the very least give people the option to completely unplug it and have a working Xbox One. That would be a fair compromise and put those worried at ease.

Dude, haven't you noticed how you'll go on some shopping site to browse stuff and then go to a non consumer site and see ads for the same things you were just looking at? It's already happening and in many different ways. Really, all you're hearing about Kinect is just paranoid nonsense. Until I see solid proof that video, voice or whatever else is being taken off of Kinect and used without the consent of those being recorded, I'll leave the panic to other people.

Once kinect is adopted and accepted, you will have a storm of devices that will follow this precedent. As these new technologies enter the market, our Rights as individuals are at risk. In the past an employee of Microsoft wouldn't have had the right to come to your house and ask you questions or observe you in your private environment. Now, with these new technologies, our rights need to adapt to stay relevant. If people don't get vocal right now at this very critical point in time we will have a future where new technologies infringe on our privacy rights. Is anyone in congress voicing these concerns right now? I really hope so.

@S2Killinit Well said, that's why this discussion matters more than anytime in history....It will be banned in Germany at 1st...other countries should follow. People are finally waking up to the consequences of these devices. Microsoft shouldn't have made Kinect mandatory and loaded with 3D HD scanning/biometrics/voice profiling capabilities. Xbot fanboys need to shut the F up! This isn't about fanboyism or gaming this will have dire consequences for everybody in the world. This is the wrong direction and everybody should be against this...we must reverse course and surveillance should stop at the front door. And No fanboys, the argument about laptop cameras & phone cameras doesn't make it any less, because we only use those cameras at our choice and they are not capable of what Kinect is capable of. Consoles should be about gaming only. Shame on MS to cloak a surveillance device in a console and make it impossible to avoid it. Thereby giving customers to wrong choice for the future and lure them in with games & fun. Microsoft takes no responsibilities towards respecting the rights/freedoms of ordinary people, in fact i think all companies use these tech on consumer are punishable by law. I hope the right experts in the world will take a long hard look at this. This must not go by unnoticed.

true. I think people who disagree with you here believe that you are saying this to make it sound like what kinect is doing isn't that different. So I went ahead and agreed with you not because I think you should throw your smart phone away but because I realize we live in the 21st century. With Cell phones we gave up some of our rights. The difference is though, when you purchase a smart phone you have a choice. You can, not download applications that use GPS for example. But also, with Cell phones at least you give up your privacy rights in return for the functionality of your applications which would not work if the phone doesn't know where you are. With the kinect 2 however, the capabilities such as monitoring your heart rate, detecting where you look and for how long, how you feel while you look, your blood pressure, whether the person sitting in front of the kinect is you or someone else, how many people are sitting there with you, NONE of it is gaming related, none of it is necessary, and none of it is justifying all the R&D that went into it unless if there is an ulterior motive.

PS: if people are so gullible that they don't care about what this precedent will do for their privacy rights, then maybe they should consider this: at an industry conference way back, Microsoft boasted to a bunch of industry representatives that using Kinect's capabilities would allow for movie studios to charge people based on how many heads are counted in front of kinect. So if your rights aren't important enough, maybe your wallet is. Microsoft already patented this functionality, but when the news got out they rejected that they had any intention to implement this method. I for one believe them. But how about the generation after next? What then? What happens when people get used to the idea of having cameras inside their homes that gather information from them? Has Microsoft guaranteed that they will never pursue these types of anti-consumer measures? I believe Kinect 2 is only the beginning.

I'm telling you, this is why I will never have an X1 in my home. As excited as I was about owning a MS and Sony machine for the next gen of consoles the DRM and Kinect issues on X1 killed that notion and I'm firmly sticking with my two PS4 pre-orders.

I know MS did the "180" due to gamer backlash on DRM and check-ins (to a degree), but given that the all-watchful-and-hearing Kinect is still a requirement makes the X1 a non starter for me and my family, and will get no play in my home.

4show I can understand why you would say that. Some of my past comments may have not been so diplomatic when it came to things like hd-dvd, rrod, and dvd9, but I can tell you that I was looking forward to getting the next console from Microsoft because I believed it would be a " New beginning", on par with Sony's offering. As illustrated in what I mentioned before in my previous comment, I was sadly mistaken.

@RM-TatoTiburon You think the 'low level' software settings is control? Microsoft has the control in the deeper layers. Don't ever be so naive. The only garantee that it is off is a hardware/plug disconnection between the device and the console. You think you have the control when MS tells you? They also left unpatched leaks in Windows for the NSA to use(fact you should follow the news)...haha

@RM-TatoTiburon 1st comment Because everybody has been spied upon we should let them continue? The fact that it already happens with less capable devices shouldn't be an argument to condone these practices in the first place, are you really that daft? It is time to no longer tolerate this. We shouldn't have let them hijacked are hard earned freedoms in the 1st place. 'the problems of the future can't be fixed with solutions of the past' (Einstein). Legislation has been abused and loopholes in the amendments have been used to implement excessive spying on ordinary people without true justification. We need to change and adapt the laws and force legislation to adapt restoring the balance between civilians & their governments. Democracy needs to be saved before we are incapable of protest by these techniques. Think before choosing comfort and ignorant acceptance. Abuse is already and will become worse, do not think for a moment this doesn't apply to your peacetime. These techniques will shift the balance of power like we have never seen in the history of mankind.

The NSA leased a nearby defunct chip plant from Sony at Loop 410 and Military Drive San Antonio, Texas. Sony hands are not clean. Check out the link to PRISM that has a Sony logo besides it. Maybe your PSN password will work there. Lol

even if i have nothing to hide but i appreciate my privacy, and don't trust the government even if you have Not done anything wrong, they can and will try to screw you over. watch this great talk http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc

wow... you can shut it off you know. If you are that paranoid that MS would turn it on at the request of law enforcement, you have much bigger things to worry about that video games. Might want to take this moment to power off your smart phone which has a camera and mic.